Danielle Krage is back on the podcast to give us some more invaluable speaker advice. We first had Danielle on Fireside two years ago, so we’re eager to hear her thoughts on what’s changed for speakers in the last two years, and what could be coming up next. She tells us all about her company, The Remote Speaker Coach, and her journey to founding it. While working on education projects, Danielle kept running into the same problem; she was meeting people with great ideas and amazing knowledge about their subjects, but when they got up onstage to speak - they froze. Sound familiar?
As someone who trained in theatre, Danielle knew she had the skills to help these speakers tighten up their talks, and bring the audience in with their presentation, rather than alienating them - an extra challenge when speaking remotely. It’s not just taking out an “um” here and an “ah” there, instead Danielle has a clear and systematic approach to maximising your talk to its full potential. As it turns out, a lot of this comes down to structure. After all, even though you're not performing a piece of fiction, you are still telling a story. And a story needs a beginning, middle and end. This is where Danielle starts when she works with a speaker. But there are many pitfalls beyond this.
Richard explores a particular problem that he has with slides - he pre-empts what they're going to say, making them miss their mark when he clicks onto them. Danielle drills down into the minefield that slides can present and tells us what to ask ourselves when putting them together.
- Are the slides adding to what I‘m saying, or just repeating it?
- Is each slide earning its place in the presentation?
- What’s my plan B if things go wrong?
As she puts it, a lot of what Danielle helps people to do is cut, cut, cut. She’s worked with speakers that have decided their talk should last for sixty minutes. Danielle says, why? What are you trying to say, and is there a way you can say it in forty-five minutes instead? It’s not simply about cutting time. It’s about streamlining, about keeping that momentum going and only including the most important information necessary to get your message across.
All this said, speaking is a highly individual craft, something Danielle emphasises. It’s important to listen to advice, but equally to assess your own weaknesses and strengths. What’s going to make you feel your best before speaking? Are you someone who benefits from keeping focused on yourself, or do you feed off the energy of a crowd? Knowing what works for you is a key piece of information in putting together speeches, and building a routine for when you get up onstage. If you can’t get round to hiring Danielle as your personal speaking coach, you can at least get a sample of her wisdom in this episode.
Reach out to Danielle here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellekrage/
Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast
Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:
Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com
Interview Intro
Richard Rodger: [0:00:00] Welcome to the Voxgig Podcast. We talk to people in the developer community about developer relations, public speaking and community events. For more details, visit voxgig.com/podcast. All right, let's get started.
Let's talk again about public speaking. In this episode, we speak to Danielle Krage, speaking coach, whose website happens to be remotespeakercoach.com, and that is exactly what she teaches among many other things. Public speaking is one of the skills that always comes in handy when you're doing developer relations, and since it can be a challenge for many folks, it's important to realize that it is just a skill and you can learn it.
In our discussion, we also turn out attention to remote events and the design thereof, and in particular, paying attention to the shorter attention span of remote audiences, who cannot simply lift and shift an existing event format to work as a virtual event. Danielle has lots of great insights. One of my favorites from this discussion is a suggestion that you should be able to visualize all of your slides from beginning to end. If you can't do that, you've probably got too many slides. Okay, let's talk. [0:01:13]
Main Interview
Danielle Krage
Richard Rodger: [0:01:15] Danielle, it is lovely to have you back on the Fireside with Voxgig podcast. How are you doing? How are things? How have things been in the last couple of years? [0:01:22]
Danielle Krage: [0:01:23] Really good, thank you, Richard. It is lovely to be back. What a two years it has- [0:01:28]
Richard Rodger: [0:01:27] I know, yeah.
Danielle Krage: [0:01:29] But it's been really interesting. I know it's been both challenging and tough, and there's been lots of opportunities for growth in different ways for different businesses. But I am very fortunate to still be doing what I love to do, which is coaching speakers. And I was also very fortunate in that I had already set my business up remotely; even called myself The Remote Speaker Coach before OVID. Yes, still affected by changes to live events but also happily positioned to be able to continue working with my tech clients and lovely speakers, in new ways through online conferences and other opportunities. [0:02:05]
Richard Rodger: [0:02:05] Wonderful. And I mean, what a great name to have, right, remote speaker coach, just- [0:02:08]
Danielle Krage: [0:02:08] Yeah.
Richard Rodger: [0:02:10] You must be prescient or something. I have asked you- [0:02:12]
Danielle Krage: [0:02:13] Yeah, it's funny; I got challenged on it when I picked it by some of my previous clients, because I had a previous situation of the company that didn't allude to remote at all. And it was quite a split between some people saying, "That's a weird name. That sounds a bit cold." But also being really well positioned for tech and getting great responses from tech, who were already looking at working remotely and in distributed ways, so I'm very happy. [0:02:33]
Richard Rodger: [0:02:32] Well, it's perfect now; isn't it? [0:02:33]
Danielle Krage: [0:02:35] Absolutely.
Richard Rodger: [0:02:36] It's – yeah, it's strange the way serendipity works like that in business. I have asked you back because the world has changed. But the stuff you do, being a speaker coach and also helping people specifically around remote events and all that is even more relevant than it's ever been, especially for our audience of developer advocates. But let's wind it back just a little bit. Maybe you can tell us how you ended up being The Remote Speaker Coach. [0:03:04]
Danielle Krage: [0:03:06] Yeah, so I – my first situation of being a speaker coach came about through really practical reasons. Because I ended up being in so many scenarios working on all kinds of different fantastic education projects and finding people who had brilliant skills, brilliant ideas. Would be wonderful when they had a coffee with me and were talking about their specialist subject area.
And then I would see them present and I would see that it was just not a match for their potential. They would come across in a way that made them seem so much more 2D and stuff than I knew that they were. So, I started really informally, helping people with that skillset. Because it is a skillset that I've developed in all kinds of ways through training in theatre, through being very involved in debate school, that I've had opportunities to develop that skillset, and it's not one that I find challenging.
I can always develop and become better, but it wasn't one that, you know, was unavailable to me. So, I really enjoyed being able to help them with that skillset and then seeing the benefits when they would then go back to re-present and be a much more engaging presenter. And when I saw how much of a need there was for that, and also just seeing the rewards of people who found it so scary, understandably.
Because they'd been in different positions where they'd had a bad public speaking experience. They'd been expected to stand up and defend their thesis or pitch a new project and hadn't been naturally good at it. Understandable, it's a skillset like anything else. I'm not naturally good at throwing baseballs and I would need a lot of help if someone suddenly was like, "Here, we're going to play baseball. Quick, here's the ball coming at me." I wouldn't – I would be bad at it, just because I hadn't had the practice. I don't know how to break it down; I don't know how to hold the bat.
I see public speaking in the same way. I don't see it as mysterious. I'm like, "It's no problem. This is just how we need to address this. This is the way – you're already a fantastic speaker. This is where your ideas and skills are brilliant and these are some gaps that we need to fill in.
Because understandably, if you now stand up and speak pretty much without interruption for 30 minutes, it's going to need a different kind of structure; it's going to need some different ways of being framed. You're going to need to think about how we open, how we close, how we re-engage, how we keep these things active. You are perfectly capable of doing all those things; it's just not something we necessarily know how to do naturally.
So, that was a really rewarding place to start, and because also, I'm very future facing and love tech. It was quite a quick extension to be starting to work with people who are brilliant coders, who are brilliant designers, who are fantastic at managing their teams, and then would struggle when asked to then stand out publicly and present what they have inside their brilliant brains. [0:05:34]
Richard Rodger: [0:05:35] Why do you think it's assumed that public speaking is something that people just do? A lot of people's professional experience is, the boss just throws them into it. Because it's not something you can just do. [0:05:48]
Danielle Krage: [0:05:49] No, I know; I think it's a really unfair expectation, and I challenge managers on this all the time when they're talking about people who work for them. And I will hear different leaders say about their team – they'll try – they'll think they're trying to be encouraging and they'll just be like, "It's just speaking."
And we develop this around things that we do frequently, because we do all speak so much. We have conversations multiple times a day with our loved ones or our colleagues. So, we have this term speaking and be like, "Yes, we know how to do it." But it's completely different that when you put it into a different form, in the same way we'd – it's very – an analogy is if we were all like, "We know how to write, because we write emails."
And we sit down to write a book and suddenly it's much harder than we think, because we don't know how to structure it. We don't know what a chapter is. So, it's just the same thing. It's – yes, we all have facility with words, but as I say, it's not the same as having a conversation. When you take away that second prompt – you don't have a lovely person like yourself asking questions – we need to figure out then how to structure it.
I love for example talking about structure in public speaking, even though it's not the part that people always talk about. They say, "How do I take my ums out? How do I do this?" And, a lot of the problems we run into is because we literally don’t' know how to structure 30 minutes of speaking without interruption or 20 minutes or 40 minutes if it's a keynote. How to organize our ideas and convey them and do it in what is quite an unnatural form but also a beautiful form. [0:07:17]
Richard Rodger: [0:07:18] I'll be quite cheeky. I 100% agree. I'll be quite cheeky; I'll ask you about a specific problem I have. [0:07:23]
Danielle Krage: [0:07:23] Do, friend.
Richard Rodger: [0:07:24] So, the structure thing is really important. Even if you have 20 or 30 slides or whatever it is, you have different sections that you move through and you segue from one to the other. But a specific problem that I have is, I keep talking about the subject of the next slides, so that by the time I pop up the next slide, I've already said everything to do with that slide. And it really annoys me, because it's like, oh, right, okay, well, I'll just aim for the next one then. And it looks a bit naff. [0:07:58]
Danielle Krage: [0:08:02] And how many – I have lots of questions about that. That's what I do as a coach, is I take it apart to try to find out where the fundamental problem is. So, questions that I'd be asking is around how many slides you have in your slide deck and why and what the purpose of the slides is. So, we could find if they are contributing in the way that you want them to.
Because for example, lots of speakers lean on slides for information and then they find they know the information better than they think. And like you say, they've already given the information; get to the slide and then it's a duplicate. What we're trying to do is, I treat them as separate channels that the audience is receiving.
So, the slides is like a visual channel that could have images on it; it could have words. It could be quotes; it could be statistics; it could be video. But that's one channel that the audience is going to be taking in, and you and your body and your words is a separate channel. And we need to organize the information so that they are supporting each other, not competing with each other.
And what I often then find is, when I'd look at a speaker's slides and I look at information, there's either too much duplication or there's duplication with just minor differences that are confusing for the audience. Or the slides shouldn't even be there because the speaker's trying to use them as a memory prompt. So, we go through each channel, figure out what its job is and how to strip it down to what it needs to be, what works for the speaker, what works for the audience and how to put it back together.
So, with you; I definitely want to go through your deck and find out why it looks the way it does. You might be like, "No, it's great. That's there to make it more memorable for the audience. That's there because I want to anchor that statistic in their brain. That's very important. That's there because this." But we might find there's a whole bunch of slides in there that we take out because it's just like, "I got used to having three bullets there" or "That's just information that seemed interesting, but it's too much." [0:09:50]
Richard Rodger: [0:09:51] Okay, so I'm just continuing to abuse my position as host. I'm just thinking of the very last talk I gave. The structure would have been – it was a 40-minute talk and it was a live one. The structure would have been in thirds, so the first third would have been contextualizing the problem from the statement effectively. The middle section would have been working through aspects of the solution, and then the final section would have been bringing that together in terms of practical applications.
And it was the middle section that was problematic, because that was effectively just a list of aspects of – technical aspects of the problem. And that's where I kept getting ahead of myself, because effectively each – every two or three slides was a technical aspect. And you get enthusiastic and you go onto the next one, and you realize, "Oh right, yeah. No, I've already – I just did that. Oops." 0:10:53]
Danielle Krage: [0:10:55] And why – what is it that you're showing on your slides? Is it – when you say it's the technical aspect, would you be able to, for that middle section, go through every slide. And if I ask you, "So, what's the purpose of this, would you say that all of them are really helpful to the audience? [0:11:10]
Richard Rodger: [0:11:16] I would have been a bit stuck for time and I would have thrown them together on the plane and in the hotel and reused some from previous decks. So, maybe that's part of the problem, because I'm just plonking in stuff from a previous deck that may not be 100%.
The conference slides themselves would have been mostly stick to short sentences, that type of thing, and some sort of evocative diagram of some kind. But when you have this list of things, you get – you start saying, "I missed that" and then you apply something else, and then it's – you get carried away and then that's the subject of the next slide. [0:11:16]
Danielle Krage: [0:11:59] Yeah. And so, it is part of the – that's why it's really good to work with someone else, even if it's not a coach, a colleague, is to do that streamlining. Because as I say, it's very common with speakers that they will pull – they will want to repurpose decks, which is no problem.
But it's the same thing then, whether it's that or whether it's – you're pulling things from a report or a project. It's pulling in too much and then having them there and then not streamlining enough. A lot of my job as a coach is to help speakers cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, streamline, essentialize. Because that – those slides are to support what you're saying.
And often it is just too much; it's almost impossible. If you think of quite a – I'm not saying yours is, but often, there'll be quite a cluttered visual channel of the slides. And then the speaker trying to wheel in and out of them and we just end up with things bumping up against each other. Whereas if it's really essentialized, often I'll challenge speakers to reduce it to just three. If they've previously had six, I'll get them to cut it by 50%. They can always put back in if they want to, but when we essentialize, then we – it's – we're starting from the skeleton of what's important. And also, you can put it back in, but once it's streamlined, it's much easier then to get those two channels flowing.
So, if you think about it being two channels and now you're trying to fit your words with it, you've got that less competition. And everything – you know the value of why it's there. And I would want – I always check with the speakers. I'm like, "Can you visualize all your slides or is it a surprise when you see them. From the way you're describing it, it sounds like it's a bit of a surprise. Which is understandable again. [0:13:32]
Richard Rodger: [0:13:32] Good question.
Danielle Krage: [0:13:32] If I had 26 slides and I was going through, I'd be like, "Ugh." But you want to get so clear in your head that you're like, "I can see that." Sometimes I'll call them acts: act, one, act two and act three. That' just from screenwriting, but it's the same as having a first, second and third, that middle section. Can you visualize; can you imagine pulling it up in PowerPoint or Keynote and visually see each of those and why they're there and what the transitions are between them. And if you can't, then it's still a little bit cluttered and you will be surprised when slides come up. [0:13:59]
Richard Rodger: [0:14:00] That's fabulous advice, yeah. If you can run through them in your head from start to finish, that's not going to happen anymore. [0:14:07]
Danielle Krage: [0:14:07] No. Or if you – and- [0:14:09]
Richard Rodger: [0:14:09] Wow, okay, that's a good one. [0:14:10]
Danielle Krage: [0:14:10] -and even if people aren't suing slides and they're doing it with words and then they're bringing in some live coding, I will still – I will get them to simply, simply, simplify, so they can't go wrong with the absolute basics. I'll be like, "Count out on your hands for me what's the points? In your first section, what are the three things that you're be essentially saying?"
And then of course you can expand; you can make it more complicated, but you know you're saying this, this and this. And sometimes it does seem reductionist, but if we have that reductionist approach, then we can have the nuance; we can do more fancy dances with weaving things in. We can tell stories; we can bring in in a nice live coding example, but we can hold the whole map.
The other thing that I say, if you haven't done it, is I do recommend speakers literally, even if they don't consider themselves to be a very visual person, to draw out their talk on one page, so they can see the whole thing in front of them. So that it's literally – if you know you're really great on your intro, just write intro, the context.
Talk about this, this and this, these three points. But that middle section, that's when it really flags up, if you can't, draw it out, and be like, "No, it's these three circles where I identify, it's nine problems, but it's only three key ones, with these subsets." Simplify it; put it all on one page, so you can see the whole map; you're a birdseye view looking down on it.
You can see the whole map and talk me through it in five minutes and be done. Danielle, this is my talk. This is the intro; this is the context, these technical things. And bring it to life in this interesting way here. This is where I tell my story; this is where I show this example. This is where I do this case study. And then I wrap it up in this way. When you can be at that level, it makes it much easier to bring it to life on a stage in a more nuanced, complicated way. [0:15:53]
Richard Rodger: [0:15:54] Yeah, and it's not a huge amount of extra effort; it's just – if you just packaged it. [0:15:58]
Danielle Krage: [0:15:58] I know; it's time.
Richard Rodger: [0:16:00] No, but the thing is that in terms of the value that you get out of that exercise, it's much less time than doing the blessed slides in the first place. That brings me to another – and again, I'm being so selfish, but it brings me to another- [0:16:12]
Danielle Krage: [0:16:12] Go for it.
Richard Rodger: [0:16:14] -another challenging thing, which is MCing events. Because we recently started a virtual meetup for developer relations, and that means we have a streaming service and I host it. Wow, it's really difficult, because it's – you're sitting at your desk in front of a laptop. Because I did used to host and run slide meetups before. Even if there was only 10 people turned up, it was still a very different vibe and really friendly, because it was a community thing.
And I – and for those meetups, I never needed notes. I could just ad lib and if I made mistake, everybody laughed and it was fine; it didn't matter. I find that for the virtual ones, I can't survive; I can't do them. My brain freezes, unless I take copious notes and I've really figured it out in advance, and it's really stressful. So, I don't know if have you any advice about – why is it so different, and how do I make it easier? [0:17:19]
Danielle Krage: [0:17:19] Yeah, and it's interesting, because some people find it more difficult and some – I've also got the country story from some people; they find it easier. Because they hate ad libbing and they love being able to have their notes that people can't see. So, it's really interesting that again when we hear these things with speakers, I'm always like – it's whatever issue you're having, no problem. There'll be tons of other people that do too.
And if you hear other people saying, "But I love doing it online, don't feel like you're then inadequate. You need to find the solution that works best for your strengths, your personality type, how you like to engage with humans. So really good to be really honest and be really practical and be like, "Why do I find this challenging? What is it that's hard for me about it?" And if you go and boil it down into two or three things, what would you say about why do you think you find it more stressful? [0:18:11]
Richard Rodger: [0:18:14] There's no feedback. And maybe it's from a slightly traumatic experience I had before COVID years ago, where I did an online seminar. I had my slides and it was an hour and I did the talk, and then afterwards, the host or the organizer came on and said, "You'll need to do it again because you didn't share your screen." [0:18:32]
Danielle Krage: [0:18:36] Oh, my goodness. I feel that pain. [0:18:37]
Richard Rodger: [0:18:38] Yes. I did the whole – an hour, the whole thing, without sharing the slides. So, I'm always freaked out that have I shared stuff. Even now, recording this podcast, I can't tell you the number of times that I'm literally looking at the screen going, "Okay, I'm definitely recording it." [0:18:55]
Danielle Krage: [0:18:56] Yeah, but that's great, and that's so helpful to talk through those things, because that's what I do with speakers, is because we will – understandably, because the kind of speakers that I work with are brilliant speakers who are doing other fantastic things with their life. They have demanding jobs and families and lives. That's who I like to work with. I'm not working with people who spend all day thinking about public speaking. That's my job; I do.
So, often there isn't he time then to deconstruct these things, but when we do, we're like, "Actually, when I have the time to talk through this with someone, whether it's a coach or a colleague or five minutes to brainstorm it myself, we get to deconstruct. Why am I feeling more stressed about this than ad libbing? Because I had this experience where I didn't know until the end that my screen wasn't sharing, or I'm worried it's not going to record."
But what we then get to do with speakers is, yeah, fair comment. It's understandable why if that's happened, we would feel more concerned. And I'm always then a big fan of how we make things simpler and easier for ourselves. So, then we can be like, "Okay, if I was going to treat this like it's some bug in something or a glitch, how would I go about solving it?" I'd be like, okay. Like we did at the start of this podcast. We had a little tech check before we started so that we can check with someone and verify the mics are working; yes, it's this.
I want to build that in as an ask for any future event that I don't know whether it's suggested to me or not. The host may take me through those things, but if they don't, then I'm going to. What am I going to do? We always look at the worst-case scenarios. What am I going to do if – let me go to that place in my brain. I do this thing; it hasn't recorded. What then? And will answer, that will be embarrassing; I'm going to have to potentially go back to the guest and say, "Are you prepared to re-record?"
But these things do happen, also guest on podcast and things like this. Then things where I've had to go back to people and say, "I am so sorry, but this – can we do this?" And once you've been through it – it's not the desirable solution, but it's the same as a live event. Often, we have the sense of – I always train people to expect things to go wrong. I expect there to be glitches, or the tech to be a bit off. We rehearse and we plan in the hopes that we don't. So, I'm not saying be unprofessional, but we have got that thing; it's a live event.
Same though when we're engaging with any tech. It is true that tech sometimes goes wrong. I've had things too where things haven't changed. Even a guest I recently worked with, he found that through no fault of his own, he was doing a recorded event that was then going to be shared on YouTube. And something happened his computer in the way that things do, and his screen stopped sharing. And what it did was pull up everything that was on his desktop, and that was his tax reports at the time.
So, it happens, so then what do we do? So then – but if you know, it's like, worst case scenario, I go back and I need to organizer to edit that out. That's not appropriate information to have on YouTube for my talk. We can take our brain through, this is what I will do if things do go wrong. We will solve it, and it's not a correct expectation to assume that we can always hit 100%. Things will happen and what matters is how we show up as a speaker to solve it. And we'll also give ourselves the best chance to address the things that worry us.
And it's also what you're saying, not being able to get those reactions. For some people, they find it easier, because they find it overstimulating being in a room with lots of people and having that buzz and seeing those faces. They find it easier to be calm, to focus, to use their notes. Other people, and I would include myself in this batch, prefer to be able to see people's reactions; be able to see their expressions.
So, it's noting that and going: "Okay, knowing that about myself, what's the things I can practically do, either to check in more and get more reactions?" Are there any ways that I can do that? Can I work with a co-host and see them on a screen so that I've got someone to bounce off?
Or do I just have to deal with the fact that I can't, and the part that I can control is, I'm going to give myself an extra few minutes before I start, just to do some grounding exercises, which take two minutes and often we don't do. Or take a long exhale and then an inhale and an exhale and an inhale, just to settle myself. Or do five jumping jacks if I want to energize myself.
What can I do? In, I'm talking 3-5 minutes, not a big rigmarole. That puts me in a better position to show up with the amount of energy that I want to, and then know that I'm still going to facing a thing where I'm looking at a black screen or a portrait of myself. Or I'm going to see these little boxes of other people, or nothing, because it's a webinar and I'm just going to be trying to see the chat.
And the last thing I say on that is, always ask – I get speakers to ask themselves, and I will also ask this question. It's how can I, given this set of circumstances, make it at least 5% easier for myself, or 5% more fun for myself? Ot even 10% easier or more fun. Because sometimes I find people, in trying to do a good job and being professional – I work with lots of high achievers, lots – with brilliant people.
They will pile on the demands and the expectations on themselves. Amazing if that leads to growth, but often there'll be solutions almost in front of their nose that they can't see because they're trying to do a fantastic job. Whereas I want to do a great job and make this more fun and easy for myself. An example of that is that I will ask – if it's an appropriate size group, I will ask a co-host to come on and keep an eye on the chat for me.
I can develop the skill of being able to speak and watch the chat, but I can also benefit from having a colleague who wants to get more experience in events come and be monitoring the chat for me and if I miss things, then he or she or they will throw questions out to me and enjoy coming out and being the co-host, and it makes my life easier. [0:24:47]
Richard Rodger: [0:24:49] Yeah. There's a lot; there's a lot of suggestions there. Some of them I can definitely use. Just realizing that where you draw your energy from; be conscious of where that comes from. Whether – the modalities are different. If it's in front of a live audience, and if that's what you use subconsciously, then you're going to have to replace that with something else or- [0:25:14]
Danielle Krage: [0:25:14] Totally.
Richard Rodger: [0:25:15] -do jumping jacks or whatever, like you said. The co-host thing is – that's a great idea. A previous guest of mine, we were talking about Twitch streaming, and she was saying that the – Salma Alam Naylor is her name. She was saying that what's really helpful for her now that she has a big audience is, she has moderators in her community that will help her moderate chat. Because it is – there's just too much going on when you're trying to live code at the same time. So, you don't have to do it all on your own; that's another – that's a big tip, isn't it? [0:25:54]
Danielle Krage: [0:25:55] Absolutely, yeah.
Richard Rodger: In terms of the way that virtual events are run at the moment, do you think we as an industry are doing a good job? Do you think they could be designed differently? Is that something you help with? [0:26:11]
Danielle Krage: [0:26:12] It is, yeah. And it's really mixed. And the biggest area where I find myself challenging people and with good intent is on trying to reimagine how events work. And when we entered COVID and people who are used to being just primarily live events moved online. Trying – there was trying to replicate the amount of time that people would listen to a talk. They were trying to take something that's live and put it online.
And that is an issue, because we always want to be designing for the medium that we're presenting in. In the same way that TikTok has its limitations of how people will watch a video, that's real. If there's a form that's being imposed by the media and also, it's expected by the audience and that's what we need to work with.
With online events, it's tricky, because we're in this area where it hasn't been totally defined. And even saying online events, something that's on Twitch will be very different than someone who it's still their annual company meetup with keynote speakers that they've paid to come and do an inspiring speech on this.
Or if it's something where we've got three tracks running still and we're expecting our audience and we're offering 450 talks across this many days across this. It's – there's a very wide span of what events can look like, but what I do when I work with event organizers as a consultant is, I'm trying to get them to be realistic in a good sense about audience attention span. And I am someone who also loves to be incredibly optimistic and loves to be very visionary and loves to be very creative. So, it's not that I'm trying to be a pessimist or spoil their vision, but I do think you always need to be thinking about audience.
It's the absolute primary focus and it sounds so obvious to say but it so often gets lost. Even on a mini-term, when you were talking about MCing, I often get speakers to try to imagine that audience if they can't see them. Imagine the kind of people who used to be in that room, who they're speaking to, whether it's someone who's 23, who's this. So, we start to humanize it and personalize it.
It's the same for event people. I say imagine your audience realistically. And what are you like when you go to events? I'm someone who loves public speaking and is fascinated by the form, and still I will have emails coming in; I will have a phone and be receiving a text. I will have a partner who – I might hear cooking in the next room. I might have the postman knocking on the door. And it is a genuine thing, the fatigue of looking at a screen when we're in an area where there's potentially so many other distractions.
So, we'll be saying, design for reality; design for an audience that if the laptop is how they're receiving it, it is not the same as having an audience sat in a suit looking at a stage, with lighting to focus their attention, slides to focus their attention. Potentially the house lights down, removing even the distraction of the people sat next to us. It's not the same, so we need to be designing online events for that and questioning all base assumptions.
Even – I work with lots of tech companies in – I will work with a speaker who gets invited to come and, say, do a webinar that's at a conference. And it's – for some reason, it's 60 minutes. Why this arbitrary length of time? In the same way you could question why a meeting slot's this? We do need to question, is that the right amount of time for this subject. Could we deliver it in a much more punchy, impactful way in 20 minutes? Would we get a better result if we do?
And for people who are designing events, again I say be thinking about that real person on the other side and how we can make it a great experience for them? Let's not overwhelm them with choice, because then if we do, sure, we might be able to say, "450 talks that you can come to across this."
That looks great if choice is what's being valued, but then if they come and there's lots that aren't of very good quality or aren't well-organized and this, then you could potentially turn them off your whole conference. So, it is about curating, upping the quality to the highest level that we can, making it worth people's time. Because just because something's free, if it is a free event, the event doesn't mean people aren't paying with their time. [0:30:42]
Richard Rodger: [0:30:43] It feels like – yeah, it feels like there's a lot to learn from the TikTokers and the Instagram shorts or whatever it is, or the YouTube shorts. Because that's a whole skillset that's quite professional to do it correct. I see it in my teenage kids are just live in that world, and I don't. I don't understand the structures of it or the techniques. That's something to investigate for sure. [0:31:11]
Danielle Krage: [0:31:15] Because we're always wanting to deliver what is the best thing for that medium. And as I say, I wouldn't still be doing speaker coaching if I didn't think there was still a real need for talks that are delivered by humans potentially with slides. But it is then – it's like, when is a great time to use this form for what we're trying to share with other humans.
And sometimes it is; it's like, no, this is such a brilliant way. This will save them so much time if they come to this talk, or save them so much uncertainty or complications. Because in this talk, I am distilling what it would take them hours to find if they were just trawling through random videos or having to piece together these things.
I'm presenting for their brain in this space of time a concept that's going to be so useful to them or that's going to give them such great insights. Or that's really going to inspire them and give them practical ways forward into the next steps they need to take. But I'm just – again, that's the speaker, so I'm always really practical.
We work with a value time wheel, so we take however long their talk is going to be, whether it's 10 minutes, 15, 20, 30. Whatever it is, we draw out that wheel of time and then we make sure that for each section of the talk – you talked about your three sections. With you, I'd want to go through and say, "How much time are you allocating to the first one, the second one, the third? And what's the value that we're delivering to the audience for each of those."
So that they come away being, "I'm so glad I spent that 40 minutes doing that. My goodness, I'm so inspired. I know exactly what I want – how I want to think about that. That gives me such an insight. That would have taken me six hours to do on my own." We want them to come away feeling like they've had a great experience, time spent well, and delivered in a way that totally makes sense, where they're not like, "Wish I'd read the cliff notes for that," or "I could have…" That's again, when it's like, "I could have had the deck without the speaker and flipped through at twice the speed and be much better off." No, we don't want that. [0:33:09]
Richard Rodger: [0:33:10] Yeah, I know; we know that experience. Danielle, there is one final thing I want to ask you about, which I find really inspirational, cool. You have this thing called the 100 Women Project. Can you talk to us some more about that? [0:33:22]
Danielle Krage: Yeah. It's called the 100 Women Project, and I am supporting 100 women and non-binary leaders to meet their next public speaking challenge, and doing so in a way that's really fun and rewarding. So, as I've mentioned, I work in tech a lot, and I'm sure your listeners will be familiar with some of the challenges that are in that sector and other sectors too around what diversity looks like in many different respects.
This is one angle that I'm really committed to making changes in. I have been for years been working with companies but still it's an issue that still needs more attention. I'm like, "What can I do practically?" My practical thing is, I have made a program that's for the first time specifically for – you have to be either a woman or a non-binary speaker to come into the program. Because I have listed time and attention and energy too.
And within that program then, I'm going to help the speaker. And I've already started working with lots of brilliant women on this to identify what the next great public speaking challenge is for them. And it's looking different for the different candidates. For some of them, they're going to be taking on the role that you're talking about MCing. They're going to be moderating some amazing online panels, and that's going to be the next thing they do, because that's the next best challenge for them.
For some, it is developing a new talk in an area that they're super passionate and interested about, but still doubtful about whether they can claim that authority or expert status, and that's what's been holding them back. For some, because they have such busy life. It's a way of having that focus time, and I can help them accelerate that progress, because they're like, "I know I want to do this. It's so hard to make time to do it though. If someone asks me to come and speak with them, okay, but I don't have – I feel like I don't have the time to commit to this."
It's like you'd have a personal trainer at the gym to help you through that process in a really expedient way, so they can then be like, "This is how I want to share this idea and these are the new opportunities that I'm going to match it to and I'm proactively going to go after." And also, it's a safe space for people to come.
And in the same way that you're saying, "I find this really stressful," to be able to say. "I'm struggling with this. I find this really stressful. I had this experience that didn't go well." And just to work through all those things and be like, "No problem. All of them – we've got really practical solutions. We can figure out what's going to work for you; it's really tailored." And then they can go out and be more visible, be seen, be heard and do that amazing advocacy that's so valuable to all of us. [0:35:50]
Richard Rodger: [0:35:52] How does it work? How does it work? You don’t get 100 people in a room together, I'm guessing. It's more- [0:35:55]
Danielle Krage: [0:35:55] No.
Richard Rodger: [0:35:55] -smaller groups or… [0:35:57]
Danielle Krage: 0:35:58] Yeah. So, I do; when I do work with companies, I do do team training, so I do work in groups, but this one purposefully, because of the kind of women that I'm working with, I've put it as a one-to-one coaching program. Which I haven't done for a while, because I've been operating with companies in different ways. But this one, it is exclusively one to one, so that it can be as fast and tailored as possible for those speakers. So, I'm going to offer it until I've worked with those 100 speakers, and then I probably need to close the program and re-imagine it in a different way, because it's a big time commitment. [0:36:31]
Richard Rodger: [0:36:30] Okay, so there's still spots left though. There's- [0:36:33]
Danielle Krage: [0:36:33] There's what, sorry?
Richard Rodger: [0:36:35] People can still sign up.
Danielle Krage: [0:36:36] Yeah. I only opened it in mid-July. And- [0:36:39]
Richard Rodger: [0:36:39] Okay, wonderful.
Danielle Krage: [0:36:40] -I'm running it until the places are filled. So, it's been really lovely to see the response. I've designed it purposefully, and again, I designed it this way so that it fits with lots of the issues that we see, so that individuals can come. Often, people will have their own personal learning budgets if they work within a company and they want to be able to come and use it for this. So, they – I've made it really easy to do that. And I've also made it so that companies can send up to five candidates who fit that profile to come through the program.
So, it's an easy way. I work with lots of HR departments and different managers, and this makes it really streamlined; it's all laid out as a program so they can come and do it. And everyone will have five sessions to use, which is a really practical amount to go from, I'm not sure. I think I want to do this. Maybe I want to do this. I don't know. Can you help me – clarifying what that goal is – through to actually succeeding and meeting that goal in a one-to-one way. [0:37:36]
Richard Rodger: [0:37:37] Marvellous. It sounds – it does sound really cool. And remotespeakercoach.com, I guess, is where they can find you. [0:37:42]
Danielle Krage: [0:37:42] That's right, yeah. Remotespeakercoach.com is where you can find what I offer, which for companies, I focus on – primarily on team training. But also, we do put that together with one-to-one coaching programs where I have the availability and can help them. But it's targeting some of the things that we've talk about today, like how do you structure things? How do you deal with nerves? What about this?
I offer different ask a speaker coach sessions. Things that are to do with structuring. Things which are to do with storytelling, which comes up a lot with technical talks. They will have – they'll be asked from different places to make their technical talks more engaging or to bring in story. But then the word is used in this really general way; but how! How do I do that? So, it's really- [0:38:24]
Richard Rodger: [0:38:24] I'd love to, and I'd love to continue talking about this, because that's – that again is one of the ones that I struggle with. But unfortunately- [0:38:30]
Danielle Krage: [0:38:30] Yeah, understandably.
Richard Rodger: [0:38:32] -we would be here all day. Danielle, thank you so much. This has been super wonderful. A lot of practical takeaways for me, and I hope for our audience as well. Thank you, thank you. [0:38:40]
Danielle Krage: [0:38:41] Awesome, thanks so much. [0:38:41]
Richard Rodger: [0:38:42] Wonderful.
Endnote
Richard Rodger: [0:38:43] You can find the transcript of this podcast and any links mentioned on our podcast page at Voxgig.com/podcast. Subscribe for weekly editions, where we talk to the people who make the developer community work. For even more, read our newsletter. You can subscribe at voxgig.com/newsletter, or follow our Twitter @voxgig. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time. [0.39.11]